Shocks and the Organization of the Firm: Who Pays the Bill?

TBTs, firm organization and labor structure

“…In the framework of trade models with heterogeneous firms (Chaney, 2008), this outcome is consistent with an increase in fixed rather than variable export costs, and justifies interpreting the imposition of new TBTs as an increase in fixed export costs. While TBTs arguably raise fixed export cost, other NTMs, such as Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary or the Pre-Shipment Inspection measures represent a mix of fixed and variable export cost (see Fontagné et al, 2015;2020), and therefore are less likely to affect firms' skill intensity. TBTs differ from Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary measures (SPS) as the former relate to technical standard of mainly manufacturing products, while the latter concern mainly food and agri-food product and their ingredient composition (contents of pesticides, ingredient mix, etc.).…”

“…Based on a trade shock that hit Denmark in 2006, the Cartoon Crisis, he shows that the drop in firms' exports to Muslim countries caused a compression of wages and a reduction in the number of hierarchical layers within the firm. A (second) notable exception is Sforza (2020) who studies how firms adjust their organizational structure in response to negative shocks: while a credit supply shock affects high-skilled workers more than low-skilled workers, an import shock (China) reduces employment at all levels. We contribute to this literature, first, by analyzing the effect on the workforce of a different type of shock, namely NTMs, which potentially require skill intensive investments and activities; second, by investigating the effects of a shock in the export market (rather than from import competition), which is a relatively understudied aspect.…”

TBTs, firm organization and labor structure

“…Based on a trade shock that hit Denmark in 2006, the Cartoon Crisis, he shows that the drop in firms' exports to Muslim countries caused a compression of wages and a reduction in the number of hierarchical layers within the firm. A (second) notable exception is Sforza (2020) who studies how firms adjust their organizational structure in response to negative shocks: while a credit supply shock affects high‐skilled workers more than low‐skilled workers, an import shock (China) reduces employment at all levels. We contribute to this literature, first, by analyzing the effect on the workforce of a different type of shock, namely NTMs, which potentially require skill intensive investments and activities; second, by investigating the effects of a shock in the export market (rather than from import competition), which is a relatively understudied aspect 13…”

The Value of Managers’ Export Experience: Lessons from the Angolan Civil War

“… See Caliendo et al (2020) andSforza (2018) for a description of the mapping of our occupational categories into a knowledge based hierarchy.…”